


A Few Words About the Desert

by Plodder



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Desert, Gen, Grief, Obi-wan on Tatooine, mentions thoughts of suicide, post RotS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-12-02 15:10:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11511942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Plodder/pseuds/Plodder
Summary: Obi-Wan's thoughts as he accepts his new life on Tatooine.This is sad.





	A Few Words About the Desert

“Once again there was the desert, and that only”  
Stephen King-The Gunslinger

“I have always loved the desert. One sits down on a desert sand dune, sees nothing, hears nothing. Yet through the silence something throbs, and gleams...”  
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry-The Little Prince

 

The dune sea embodies stillness. No wind stirs the sand, making no new patterns or paths. Stillness does not equate to peace. Heat rises and chokes the living. Animals lie dormant at the twin sun’s zenith, awaiting the night. There is no room for error and no forgiveness in the desert’s day. It is the time for despair. 

Dusk is far off. Midday approaches. 

A man walks alone, hooded and cloaked, easy to miss, unless one was looking for him. He comes to a hovel and lies down on the sandy floor. Consumed by thirst, he imagines his tongue is desiccated, cracked, looking like the dried up delta of a long dead river. He imagines water pouring in, running down in rivulets, and awakening things long dead. 

His home is cool. There is stale water in the jug from the vaporator, like there was the day before, and the day before that. Again, he must make the decision to drink. 

It has been months since he arrived on this planet. At the time, he had felt so little. His only waking thought had been his duty. Everything else had fallen away. There had been no time for processing, for grief, for hunger, hurt, or overwhelming exhaustion. Once the child was delivered, safe, and shielded, he was bereft of duty. 

No loss had ever been so profound, except perhaps for the one that mattered most. The one that was probably still burning. Always there had been the task, the mission, the apprentice, the life to save, the younglings to teach, the council to update. All is gone.

Pain is now his constant companion, but at least it’s steadfast and preferable to being alone. And being alone, that is preferable to the host of ghosts that could come to haunt him. They are starting to rustle around, creeping in the corners of his dreams. Tall, short, young, old, some beloved, they are all gone. 

How quickly the republic was lost; so fast that the moment could have been missed in an eye’s blink. There had been surprisingly little thought or action as the temple burned. Centuries upon centuries of service were forgotten. The order dissipated like smoke and the republic evaporated into the empire, gone like water in this desert. 

How do you go on living, he wondered, when the days spread onward with the monotony of the dune sea? No change in site, no foreseeable future, only endless sand. Nothing in any training has prepared a Jedi for this. Sometimes he feels as if he has nothing left to do but let the desert dry him out as he fades into something the color of rock and dust. 

Despair and suffering lead to the dark, they say, but he did not feel dark, only empty and bereft. He sees someone wreathed in fire, reaching out to him. Goodbye, my brother. 

Softly now, it would be easy to fade into the force, but.... He thinks of his distant charge, transported safely from Polis Massa to the moisture farm, small and frail, in need of protection. Who would shield the boy if he were gone? Who would tell him of his father as he was, not as he is now?

Something stirs in his mind. His sense of duty reawakens. He thinks of the people he has failed and realizes that there is one left whom he cannot fail. 

The sun starts to leave long shadows. The sky turns to darkening blue, the color of a beloved’s eyes. A bantha wanders by, lowing.

Day slips into dusk. Tiny rodents and insects skitter about. The desert comes to life, as it always does. He thinks he hears the voice of a child. He drinks. Day will begin again tomorrow.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to anyone who read this!


End file.
